Creamy Chicken Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my carbonara not creamy enough? ›

For an extra creamy sauce, it's best to use mostly egg yolks. The egg whites tend to make carbonara watery, but too many egg yolks can make the sauce too custardy. The solution? Five egg yolks and one whole egg.

The creamy sauce is made by tossing eggs and Parmesan with cooked pasta and its still piping hot cooking water. It's so simple but can be intimidating.

The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks. This will create a smooth, velvety sauce. As like any pasta dish, including carbonara, cook the pasta perfectly al dente so that it's soft but still firm, with some bite.

Step 5 – Make the Pasta Carbonara

Use one hand to pour the mixture and the other hand to stir constantly with your tongs. Stir until the entire pot is steaming and you have a creamy sauce. If the sauce is too dry, this is where you'll add some of your pasta water. Just add enough to give the sauce a creamy consistency.

Thicken the sauce with a flour slurry.

Whisk together equal parts flour and cold water in a cup or small bowl. Once you've whisked the flour and water into a smooth slurry, stir the slurry into the cream sauce 1 teaspoon at a time.

Alfredo is made from butter, parsley, heavy cream and minced garlic, whereas carbonara is made from pecorino romano, eggs, black pepper and guanciale (ingredients seem to vary for the sauces depending on the recipe). In Italy carbonara is made without cream, adding cream to the sauce is an American thing it seems.

Cooking process: Thick, creamy Alfredo sauce involves cooking down butter and heavy cream in a sauté pan or saucepan to make a thick, rich cream sauce. On the other hand, carbonara involves combining pasta and a bit of pasta water with rendered guanciale, raw eggs, and grated cheese.

What not to put in Spaghetti Carbonara? Don't put garlic, cream, milk or butter. It is not needed. It is fine if you want to make a dish with those ingredients, but if you want to learn how to make this dish correctly, use only pecorino, eggs/egg yolks, black pepper, guanciale, and pasta water.

Because in the traditional recipe there is no garlic, if you add it you will lower quality of a very good food. My personal opinion is that garlic flavour does not fit with the egg nor the guanciale (pork cheek fat) flavour at all.

What distinguishes carbonara from other pasta dishes is its technique of combining eggs, hard cheese, cured pork, and black pepper into a rich, silky sauce. This recipe calls for raw eggs that are gently cooked by the hot sauce. If you prefer, you can use pasteurized eggs instead.

How do you stop carbonara scrambling? ›

Add a little of the pasta cooking water when you bring the spaghetti into the pan with the pancetta/bacon. The water is starchy, so acts as a natural thickener, making the dish extra silky. It's also taking some of that sting out of the pan heat so you can add the eggs and cheese without scrambling.

The Fix Is Simple—Add Water Back.

While it may seem counterintuitive to add liquid to an oily sauce, whisking in more water replaces what was evaporated and helps re-suspend that fat, emulsifying your sauce once more. A generous splash of water is all it takes.

Traditional Carbonara is a pasta sauce that gets its famously smooth, silky texture from the special way eggs (with extra egg yolks added) are cooked in the hot pasta itself. There is also the addition of hard Italian cheeses like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano that add to the smoothness.

Because the consistency of your sauce is so thin, it might as well be water. This could happen when you add too much pasta water into your sauce, and you accidentally drown the thick sauce with the starchy water (happens to the best of us).

Carbonara is a dish best enjoyed freshly made, so try to avoid making it ahead for guests. The sauce will continue to thicken and congeal as it sits with the pasta. Thick/Runny Sauce: If your sauce is too thick, add 1 tbsp of pasta water at a time until a creamy consistency is achieved.